Ernest Hemingway

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

- 1899 (Chicago) – 1961

- Pulitzer Price 1953, Nobel Price 1954

- father was doctor and mother was music teacher

- took cello lessons, hated it but it was useful

- been boxer, many cats

- started to write at secondary school

- 1916 – first published article

WWI

- volunteer as an ambulance driver in Italy

- 8th July 1918 wounded in mortar fire while taking chocolates and cigars for Italian soldiers

- 6 months in hospital, fell in love with a nurse (Agnes), planned wedding but she left

- kept helping wounded soldiers => Italian medal for bravery

- after WWI:

• freelance reporter for Toronto Star => appreciated

• 1st wife Elisabeth Richardson – 8 years older

• new job: Paris correspondent

• best times → pretty wife, good money and job

Paris

- meets famous people

• Gertrude Stein (lost generation)

• James Joyce + Eh = alcohol buddies (sprees)

• Pablo Picasso

• F. S. Fitzgerald – inspiration for EH to write a novel

WW2

- before:

• 1926 – 2nd wife Pauline Pfeiffer => moved to Florida (key west), bought his 1st boat

• 1937 Spanish war – reporter

• 1939 sailed to Cuba, separation from Pauline

• 3rd wife Martha Gellhorn (collection furniture + arts)

- 1944 => war correspondent in London

- 4th wife Mary Welsh Hemingway

- D. Day 6th June 1944 – EH present on a ship with US Army

–> at outskirts of Paris EH pretended to be the captain of the US Army = crime

- after:

• health problems (alcohol)

• writes and travels a lot

• 1954 plane crash, next day transport to hospital by a plane –> plane exploded –> EH burns + head injuries –> whole world thing he died –> EH had fun reading his own obituaries

• never fully recovered physically (painkillers + alcohol)

• he thing FBI follows him

• April 1961 Mary found him with a shotgun in his mouth, took him to hospital =. electric shock treatment

• 30th June released from hospital –> 2nd July shot his head off –> press wrote it was an accident

• his father ‘s illness + mental and physical state getting worse –> suicide

WORKS

- excellent narrator

- at first short stories only (“get the most out of the least”)

- themes: love, loss, war (his life)

- 7 novels (+ 3 after teath)

→ The Old Man and the Sea

→ For Whom the Bell Tolls

→ A Farewell to Arms

→ The Sun Also Rises

→ To Have and Have Not

- 3 shorts story collections (+ 4 after death)

• The Three Stories and Ten Poems

• In Our Time

• Men Without Women